


a line that we can just go cross

by narcolepticbadger



Category: Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins), Wonder Woman - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, WW84 spoilers, fixing things (ish)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:21:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28350825
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/narcolepticbadger/pseuds/narcolepticbadger
Summary: It's becoming a bit of a pattern, taking Barbara home—sometimes from the edge of the world. Diana finds she doesn't mind it.[Missing scenes from WW84.]
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Barbara Minerva
Comments: 47
Kudos: 528





	a line that we can just go cross

**Author's Note:**

> So, I was NOT expecting to write fic for WW84, but then some things happened and here we are lol. I felt compelled to write this because I cannot accept that (1) Diana would let Barbara walk home alone after she was just violently assaulted, and (2) we got zero scenes or closure for anyone after all of the wishes were reversed. Like, ???
> 
> I am confusion about many things this movie did / didn't do, and this is my way of trying to find some sense in it all.

_You okay?_

_Yeah… yeah. Thank you._

_Of course. Go home, okay? Goodnight._

Satisfied that her friend was safe, Diana continued on without another word, thoughts already reeling off in another direction. Barbara’s earlier question about love had taken her by surprise, as had the honesty of her answer, and now memories of Steve were turning themselves over in her mind, worn smooth like stones in a river with the passage of time but no less cutting at the edges. 

But then there was a rush of footsteps, and Barbara’s voice rose in question behind her, pulling her back into the present. “Um, w-wait, Diana? Could you maybe… walk with me? In case there’s… well, just in case?”

She turned back, taking in how very small, how very _fragile_ in that human way, Barbara looked standing in the half-dark of the park path, and even from a distance Diana could see that the other woman was trembling, clearly in shock from the assault that Diana had interrupted only a moment before. 

“Yes, of course, I’ll walk you home,” she said, wondering how she had missed how shaken the woman was when she had helped set her back on her feet. 

Barbara smiled with relief, hurrying to her side. “Actually, I was going to go back to the office to finish up something for tomorrow.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to just go home? Either way, I’m happy to go with you, wherever you’re going.” 

“Maybe you’re right. Yeah, that work thing can wait for another day. It’s, um, kind of a long walk back to my place though…” Barbara trailed off, glancing up at her hesitantly. 

Diana smiled, nudging the other woman with her shoulder as they began to walk again. “It’s no trouble, Barbara. We’re going this way?” 

Barbara nodded and looked away, her expression lost in the darkness that fell over them when they stepped beyond the warming glow of the streetlights scattered along the path.

“It’s probably silly. I just feel… safer with you here.” 

“That’s not silly at all.” 

“Can you really teach me that move you used back there? ’Cause that was, like, really badass. I’m not sure I can pull that off. At least, not the way you did, like it was nothing.” 

Barbara was weaving slightly as she talked, not-quite-stumbling in her heels, and Diana lifted a steadying hand to her back, stroking downwards to settle in the hollow at the base of her spine. 

“I think you’ll pull it off beautifully,” 

This close, Diana could feel the flicker of the other woman’s pulse against her fingertips — too-fast, and delicate, and so alive it almost burned — and Barbara leaned further into her touch, the casual intimacy of their stance surprising, and strange (it had been so long since Diana had allowed herself to get so close to another person, familiar like _this_ ), and then not strange at all.

Their conversation turned to lighter things as they walked and soon they were laughing, chasing away the specters of matters best left in the past, forgotten, and when they finally reached the steps to Barbara’s apartment — _I told you it was a long walk,_ Barbara said, teasingly — Diana found herself lingering, reluctant to let the night go. 

“Thank you for… everything,” Barbara said, breaking the thread of contact between them and slowly backing up the stairs one step at a time as she clutched at the handrail for balance. “You know, for dinner, and the rescue, and the walk home.”

“It was my pleasure. Any time you need a rescue, let me know.”

“I guess this is goodnight, then.” Barbara looked down, scuffing at something with the toe of her shoe. “Unless you want to teach me that use-their-momentum-against-them move now?” 

Diana paused, considering it, thankful that Barbara’s gaze was fixed elsewhere when she said, with effort, “Tomorrow, maybe?” 

“Oh, yeah, sure, tomorrow.”

Disappointment rang clear in Barbara’s voice, and she retreated further, fumbling at the door with her keys and so engrossed in the struggle that she missed Diana’s approach, startling when Diana pressed a kiss to her cheek, and then another. 

“Until tomorrow, then,” she said softly, and slipped away before the other woman could respond.

.

.

.

She found Barbara at the end of a rocky incline that overlooked the sunrise, relieved to see that the woman no longer bore the stark black-and-white pelt she had when they had battled — though that creature had never been _Barbara,_ not really — but the familiar, and dear, golden hair and skin of her friend that caught the dawn like all the colors of fire. 

As Diana moved closer, she disturbed a few stones from the path and sent them clinking together down the hill, and Barbara tensed at the sound. 

“What, come to finish me off?” she spat, barely turning her head to look at Diana. Her arms were wrapped protectively around her middle, and each movement she made (or, more tellingly, refused to make) was careful and measured, as if she were trying to hide how badly she was hurt. 

“No, of course not,” Diana said, quickening to her side and running a light hand through the woman’s hair. “Let me see.” 

Barbara jerked away from her touch and hissed, “Leave me alone.” 

“Please—”

“I said _stay away from me_!” Barbara snarled with impressive venom, so desperate to get away from Diana that she began crawling when her limbs wouldn’t agree to anything more forceful, making slow, inching progress towards the edge of the cliff in front of them — enough to make Diana’s heart clench with the realization of what her aim was — and then collapsing again with a soft cry of pain. 

Now that Barbara’s face was bared to her, she understood for the first time that, underneath the vein of anger in Barbara’s voice, there lay a deep and terrible fear. 

Barbara was afraid — of _her._ Or, of what she thought Diana would do to her now that she lay so openly vulnerable, wounded beyond the physical damage they had done to each other. 

_Oh, Barbara._

“Okay, okay, I’ll let you be,” Diana said, as gently as she could, and lowered herself to perch on a nearby rock, just far enough to leave a span of neutral ground between them. “Is this better?”

“Perfect.”

“I didn’t want to hurt you, Barbara, but you left me with no choice. People were dying, and this _world_ —” 

“And I was, what, collateral damage? Expendable?” Barbara was biting out the words, each one sharper than the last. “Let me guess, you didn’t try to kill Maxwell Lord — that was something _special_ you reserved just for me, wasn’t it?”

Diana sighed. “I gave him the same chance I gave you, and he renounced his wish before it was too late.” 

It was the truth, but that didn’t make it any easier (any kinder) to say, and she winced at the bitter, choking laughter that Barbara coughed up in response. 

“ _There has to be a better way,_ ” Barbara said, mockingly, when her breathing eased again. “You said I was right about that.” 

“I know. I thought for a moment that we might be able to find one, together. But we were deluding ourselves because we wanted to keep the things that our wishes gave us, even when those things were costing us everything else. We would never have truly gotten what we wanted, just… optical illusions that let us pretend for a while.” 

Barbara was listening quietly, eyes half closed, and Diana shifted slightly closer to her, wanting so much to bridge the distance between them again. 

“I’m so sorry. I wish there had been another way.” 

“You _wish_. And I couldn’t do it, I couldn’t let go of what I wanted because I’m not like _you,_ Diana,” Barbara muttered, all of her earlier anger bled away so that now she just sounded tired. “I’m not special, and I’m not _good,_ and I… I don’t want to go back to being nothing.” 

“No, you’re not like me,” Diana said, and Barbara flinched at the plainness of her tone. “You’re Barbara Minerva: geologist, gemologist, lithologist, and cryptozoologist.

“ _Part-time_ cryptozoologist,” the other woman corrected, a flash of her old self cracking through, and Diana smiled, reaching out and claiming her hand, squeezing it lightly. 

“Yes, part-time cryptozoologist. You are _not_ nothing, and you are my friend.” 

Barbara turned her face away and worked to free herself from Diana’s grasp, gasping as she did so, and Diana could see the small shudders running the length of her body, a thousand little convulsions still sparking with the electricity that had been flooded through her. 

“Stop, all right? No more fighting now,” Diana said firmly, closing the rest of the space between them at last and bringing up her other hand to brush the hair back from Barbara’s forehead — _too warm_ — and hold her steady, and Barbara, mercifully, stopped trying to resist. 

Going slow so as not to jar the other woman any more than strictly necessary, Diana lifted her and leaned back, letting Barbara’s weight settle against her chest, half in her lap. 

Barbara started to say something, and Diana shushed her, slipping her arm a notch tighter around the woman's waist and keeping two fingers pressed to the erratic pulse that twitched on the inside of Barbara’s wrist in the hopes that it would begin to calm. 

“Electrocution’s really a bitch, you know?” Barbara said quietly, her voice wavering on that knife’s edge between laughter and tears. “I don’t think my heart’s supposed to beat like this.”

“You need medical attention.”

“No sh-shit.” 

“Just rest for a moment. I don’t want to move you yet.” 

They sat and watched the rising sun overtake the clouds, the sky lightening through its shades of amber and rose into a soft blue, waiting until their breathing had synced to the same even rhythm and Diana was satisfied that Barbara seemed a little more stable. 

“You know, in all the time I've been alive — and that is much longer than you may think — I have never met anyone like you.”

“I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

“It is. You’re very special.”

Barbara snorted. “Yeah, okay. The fact that you are, like, an _actual_ goddess is not helping sell that one at all.” 

“Sell what? I’m being perfectly serious, Barbara,” Diana said, tilting her head so that she could find Barbara’s eyes with her own. “It’s funny, how we envy the things we think we don’t have, when really they have always been there. Sometimes we just need some help to see them.”

Barbara again tried to turn her face away, hiding, but Diana caught her gently by the chin, stroking her thumb across the woman’s cheek until Barbara raised her eyes again, their blue all the more striking under the endless sky they idled below. 

“You will have to let me show you what I see in you one of these days.” 

And Diana kissed her, the way she had wanted to all those nights ago on the stairs, tasting Barbara’s surprise and then her hunger as she answered in kind, twining a hand into Diana’s hair and pulling her closer and edging them both out of their senses, consumed by the softness and warmth of their joining, until Barbara slumped back, struggling for breath and several shades paler than she had been a moment ago. 

“Tomorrow, maybe?” she panted weakly. “I don’t think I can handle much more today without at least one of my organs exploding. And that would be a pretty lame way to end all... this.” 

"That _would_ be lame." Diana pressed a kiss to her forehead instead — still alarmingly warm — and laced their fingers together as if to force some of her own strength into Barbara. “Tomorrow, then.” 

“Can we, um, get off this boulder, or wherever we are, now?”

“Yes, let's go home.”

“Or to, you know, a hospital. That might also be a good idea.” 

“Hospital it is.” 

It took several more minutes to work out the best way to carry Barbara in a way that was (mostly) comfortable for both of them and to test that Diana still had the control she needed to fly, and by the end of their maneuvering, Barbara was gritting her teeth while insisting she was fine, and Diana was beginning to worry that a flight through open air was only going to make things worse. 

There were no better options, though, so she whispered _hold tight_ and launched herself upwards, hovering in place momentarily while she found a safe altitude and a current that they could ride west.

“You okay?” she asked, and Barbara nodded against her shoulder, so small and light and half-breakable in Diana’s arms, but the sure grip wrapped around the back of her armor reassured Diana about the risk they were taking, at least somewhat. 

“It’s so beautiful.”

There was wetness trailing down Diana’s neck, then, and it might have been exhaustion or pain or being overwhelmed with the sudden splendor of the view laid out below them (or all these things colliding at once) that wrested the tears free as Barbara finally let herself cry. 

“Yes, it is.”

Barbara lost consciousness before they reached the edge of the city, and Diana tightened her hold around her, clamping a hand over Barbara's chest to find the heartbeat and willing them faster over the whitecaps that broke against the rocks below as the sea blurred into shore. 

Barbara had been hurt for a long time, even before Diana met her — they both had been, perhaps without understanding the full depth of their wounds that now seemed so obvious, revealed as they were at what might have been, nearly had been, the end of the world. 

But she would mend, and Diana would be there when she woke, and after — tomorrow, and all the days that followed, stretching like an unbroken line into the horizon that would return each time to greet them with its soft, forgiving light.


End file.
